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The Quest For Fusion
Richard Finney writes: "Michael Paterniti, writing for the UK's Observer , writes about a machine called Z : an inertial confinement fusion machine. This is a well written explanation for the lay person and a philospophical look at the personalities driven to create the power of the Sun on Earth. Can these dedicated heroes reach 1,000 trillion watts and high yield fusion?"
This one?
They banned nuclear power, banned coal and petroleum fired plants, hydro is out because it threatens [insert cute cuddly fish of the day], and anything else has to meet impossible-to-meet emmissions standards. What's left has all their eggs on natural gas. Which is now in short supply and sending energy prices through the roof.
Way to go, your air is still no cleaner than elsewhere and now you're running out of electricity to boot. Well, stay the fuck away from our power. Hoover Dam belongs to Nevada.
CA needs to starve for a while to learn a lesson. Namely, that legislation can't fix your air quality problems without causing other worse problems. Stop trying to STEAL people's cars and crush them into cubes (see: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1223/sb42/smo gflyer_5.html). Start drilling for oil again, both on and off shore. Don't just plunder other people's oil. Want energy? Then you have to get a little dirty yourself.
Emissions are already as low as possible of cars that can still do work. More laws can't make them any cleaner. Stop trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.
You want less smog in L.A./S.F./S.D.? Block industry and business from expanding in existing commercial areas and create new commercial areas at the rim of the city. Decentralize business and industry and you won't have so much smog all in one place. In fact, you'll have less because people will be able to get to work faster when they're not all trying to cram into the same place every day.
In the mean time, suffer, you wanted to play in the sun and beach while we stockpiled acorns for winter. Now you wanna leech off of our supply? Screw you CA. You made your mess, now lie in it.
There was a fantastic article in Wired a few years ago about the state of cold fusion research. It started with discussing how the Pons & Fleishman (sp?) discovery was correct, but that they didn't understand it yet, and the university they were at prematurely (WAY-prematurely) publicized it to garner the credit. *sigh*
Anyway, that one article was so well-written & researched, I've since stopped bitching about Wired magazine. One article of that quality a year is good enough. Sorry, don't have a link to it (don't know if it's even online).
I'll tell you why, it's b/c Elizabeth Shue is really HOT. All her work on cold fusion in The Saint is finally paying off ;-)
Hi,
2D -> He-4 + E is not correct. There are actually two different reactions that may occur, and neither is the one you have stated. These are:
D + D -> p + t + 4.1MeV
D + D -> n + h + 3.2MeV
Where the first byproduct is a proton, a tritium nuclei, and 4.1MeV of energy, and the second is a neutron, a Helium-3 nuclei, and 3.2MeV energy.
Both Tritium and Helium-3 are good fusion fuels in their own right, making the D-D reaction ever more valuable, as it's products may fuel subsequent reactions.
Also note that D-D fusion is the second easiest reaction to produce, after D-T.
This information is mostly from _Principles of Fusion Energy_, by A.A. Harms, K.F. Schoepf, G. H. Miley, and D. R. Kingdon.
I regard Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times Of Cold Fusion, by Gary Taubes, as the definitive reference on Pons and Fleischmann's "cold fusion". It's exhaustive, but a must-read if you call yourself a scientist and are interested in this subject, or just want insight into the whole "bad science" process.
(Of course if you are bent on believing a conspiracy theory, you will find it entirely unpersuasive...)
"Can these dedicated heros reach 1,000 trillion watts and reach high yield fusion?"
I think that a better question is if they can keep the plant from self-destructing every ~100 years or so, like they tended to do in Sim City 2000... That was the most annoying problem when "no natural disasters" was set, unless of course you were also using microwave power beaming *shudder*
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Where to begin.
...).
But if we can create as much power as we want, that isn't exactly going to help global warming (well it is, but that's the point
Global warming has hardly been proven to exist. I doubt very much it's existence. I am not an 80 year old Senator from the 80's. I am VERY skeptical though that humans are affecting the temperature of the Earth. I am a bit perplexed how (With little in the way of meaningful studies) Global Warming is no longer talked of as a possibility, but rather an inevitability.
Even if we get rid of the gases that contribute to the glass house effect, simply releasing any amount of heat to the environment is going to hurt it (and already does).
Umm. No. No, it's not. It's beside the point anyway, because the heat of the reactor is contained by a magnetic field. You see, it has to be that way - people don't react well to temperatures found on the surface of the Sun.
So such a power source might not be such a desirable thing after all
Yeah. Who really wants fushion power anyway? The promise of limitless, cheap and clean power. What a silly thing to wish for.
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Sounds about as safe as amateur explosives to me!
Sure, I guess this is technically feasible, but really, fusion isn't going to be that cheap... one of them fandangled "Z-Machines" is still going to cost a bundle. The initial investment to give any region fusion power will be enough to keep it out of reach from third world nations for a long time.
Look how the pre-initial costs (research) are being resisted by the gov't of the USA (the richest nation in the world).
Fusion power would be a wonderful advance for the whole world, but to make it accessible for the whole world, there's more to consider than just the technology. We have to start re-thinking third world debt (ie. loaning them more money is not the solution) and reconsidering free-trade in favour of fair-trade.
Only then will we be One World.
Jeremy McNaughton
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
"The magic bean; the Holy Grail: fusion. The idea is to take two isotopes of the hydrogen atom - deuterium and tritium - and mash them together with a little energy, which in turn releases enormous amounts of energy in the form of a single neutron."
That doesn't seem quite right. The neutron is also a biproduct, and D-T fusion is just a step on the way.
This is what happens in Deuterium-Tritium Fusion.
D + T = H-2 + H-3 -> He-4 + n + E
The result is helium (He-4), neutron (n), and energy (E) in the form of part gamma radiation and (a smaller) part kinetik energy.
That is not the end goal of fusion. There are a couple of reasons for this, first of all Tritium (T or H-3) is not a good fuel source. Tritium is a hydrogen isotope that in addition to a proton and an electron also contains two neutrons. It's radioactive, very toxic, and most importantly EXTREMELY expensive.
A better, but more difficult, solution is to use Deuterium-Deuterium fusion. Deuterium (D or H-2) is a hydrogen isotope with only one neutron. Deuterium is much cheaper to produce than tritium and is perfectly harmless. Furthermore the fusion reaction would look like this.
2D = 2H-2 -> He-4 + E
No free neutron is produced. This is a good thing. Neutron's can't be magnetically confined, so they simply fly out until it hits something, usually the physical confinement of the fusion reaction, wearing it down over time. The energy is released as gamma radiation.
Deuterium is the fuel source we assume will eventually be used when fusion becomes a commercial alternative.
-
But the most effecient form of fusion is neutron fusion. This is when a protium (P or H-1) is used as fuel. Its two components, a proton and an electron, fuse into a neutron.
P = H-1 = e + p -> n + E
This is partly what the sun does, it produces helium from protium. The sun takes two steps, first producing two neutrons and then joining them with protium to produce helium.
4P = 4H-1 -> 4e + 4p -> 2e + 2p + 2n -> He-4
___
Unfortunately, the temperatures necessary to drive the proton cycle are not attainable by any foreseeable human technology, either controlled or uncontrolled.
All of the reactions considered for fusion power require isotopic hydrogen as at least one component (not a big problem, since deuterium is pretty common in ordinary water) and generate copious neutrons (a much bigger problem, as they degrade the structure of the apparatus and induce secondary radioactivity).
This is poetic misinformation, similar to the early line about H-bombs being "clean" because they were driven by fusion. It took Howard Morland to make it public that so-called H-bombs actually derive 80% of their energy output from the dirty fissioning of U238 in a fast neutron flux created by the fusion reaction. Take away this final step, by using a secondary tamper that won't fission, and the neutrons go out into the atmosphere -- making what is called a "neutron bomb." (Remember those?)
Fusion may indeed be an important power source one day, but not if we gloss over the real drawbacks and hazards as the early champions of fission did. No technology that requires high energy densities can ever be entirely safe, and if we promise people that it is then we are only setting it up to be massively rejected in the bitter disillusionment that will follow the first big accident.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
If you want to be a smart ass... at least be smart.
Unit........ USA............. UK
Million..... 1000000 (6 0's). 1000000 (6)
Billion..... 1000 mill (9)... mill mill (12)
Trillion.... 1000 bill (12).. mill bill (18)
Quadrillion. 1000 trill (15). mill trill (24)
quintillion. 1000 quad (18).. mill quad (30)
sextillion.. 1000 quint (21). mill quint (36)
septillion.. 1000 sixt (24).. mill sixt (42)
octillion... 1000 sept (27).. mill sept (48)
so... 1000 trillion is 10exp21, in USA would be a sextillion.
when you read this big numbers in the press you have to be very careful about who wrote it and where. In other countries, like Spain, for example,10exp24= 1000 trillion (UK) would actually be a thousand million billions (Spain)
Damn! Did this guy write romance novels in a previous career?
If I'd have known physics was that exciting, I think I would've chosen a different major in college.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Scientific American gave a much more scientific review of the Z machine in 1998, and I saw no change in the numbers from that publication. They have been insisting that they are 30 years away from high-yield (read: energy-efficient) nuclear fusion since they came up with the theory in the first place. They are still about 30 years away from it.
I can almost hear Bullwinkle saying "This time, for sure". Every time they take another step forward, someone moves the finish line.
It's a really cool story, though.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
One thing to note about all of these items: There is practically nothing that an industrial society could possibly do to even affect any of these things from occuring.... even with a Manhattan Project style concentrated effort to even try.
Furthermore, there are strong indications that at least some of the meterological data has been manipulated to some extent to "promote" a radical change of public policy to change global warming, when in fact not all of the facts are in.
The only "substantive" climate data that I've seen that would suggest there is some sort of impact on the global climate by the current global civilization is from the ice core samples from Greenland, which can document air pollution levels in Greenland for more than 1000 years. I would like to point out that Pittsburg Pennsylvania used to have air pollution so thick that you couldn't see more than a block (and that was in the 1890's) There are some notable improvements in many industrial centers of production... but that is for another argument at another time.
To suggest that the jury has made its verdict regarding global warming is really not seeing the whole picture.
After a horrific accident at this lab in New Mexico, Freeman Gordon had to fight his way out against aliens from another dimension.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
The article IS interesting, I'll give it that... but the writer is sadly misguided (in addition to having diarrhoea of the metaphor).
/. But please, don't go around hailing it as the ultimate solution for world peace and ending man's inhumanity to man. It's not. We already have the technology AND the resources, as a race, to lift much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance, improve their lifestyles, and improve mankind as a whole thereby. We haven't, not because we cant, but because we just don't care to. We just can't be bothered, and to tell the truth, many of those in high places prefer things this way.
The "Machine", as he capitalizes it, may well be a fascinating invention, but all these references that seem to call for its worship as some sort of god really disturb me. He never comes out and says that, but he gets into the subjects of religion and deism, dropping smug references to "Waiting for Godot" and in general, clearing a path for the Lord in the desert. =P
It's just a tangle of wires and some reaaaaally high-tech gadgetry. It's not a god; it's not the final solution. Free, safe, clean power is a Good Thing, that is true. But it won't answer all the problems, and he holds to one of the most common fallacious beliefs in existence today. I quote Poul Anderson, from his short story "Superstition", set in a post-apocalyptic future :
"...But the superstition is this, son: that science could understand everything, and do everything, and make everything good... I wonder how they could have held so odd a belief, even then."
It's a good idea, and a great new technology, and so it deserves a reference on
Before a technological advance can "cure all of society's ills", it first needs to cure the common flaw of society - human nature.
And there's no cure for that.
-Kasreyn.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger